Littlehampton couple drive away with BMWs after £76,908 win

Lottery winners Paul and Pat West with their new BMWs L22553H13

After 15 years of using the same set of lottery numbers every week, Paul and Pat West were left gobsmacked when their fortunes changed and they won a whopping £76,908 in the mid-week Wednesday draw, on May 15.

On Thursday (May 23), they celebrated by splashing out and spending some of their winnings on two new BMWs at Chandlers BMW, in Water Lane, Angmering.

Pat, 49, a learning support assistant and dinner lady at a primary school in Rustington, said: “We still can’t believe that we’ve won, to be honest.

“It’s all still sinking in. But we’re absolutely thrilled by it all.

“We’ve only ever had a couple of £10 wins in the past, so to win more than £76,000 is like a dream come true.

“We just hope we don’t wake up and realise that’s all it is – a dream!”

The couple had been playing the National Lottery with the same numbers since they met, in 1998. At the time, Paul was Pat’s clarinet tutor.

Their lucky numbers are a combination of the date they met, house numbers of the first home they lived in together and the first property they bought, plus their ages.

Pat was tucking into her breakfast when she found out that they had won the lottery.

After dealing with the day-to-day morning tasks, the couple then went about deciding how to spend their windfall.

Pat admitted: “There were plenty of sensible things on there such as paying off a chunk of the mortgage, replacing the conservatory roof and clearing the credit cards, but we also allowed ourselves a few frivolous items too – I’m not sure at that stage we had two shiny new BMWs on the list.”

Paul, 45, added that last Saturday (May 18) the couple had a second lottery win, this time on the Euromillions draw.

However, this sum of cash certainly won’t be quite as life-changing as their previous win.

“It was only £2.70,” he said, “But, still, it was nice to win it.”

The couple are now planning a holiday to Spain later this year, as well as seeing the West End production of Matilda with their seven-year-old daughter.